UnionPay International expanding QR code payment to encourage the use of the Mobile QuickPass App

SHANGHAI, December 18, 2017

Recently UnionPay and commercial banks in Mainland China jointly launched Mobile QuickPass, the unified APP for China’s banking industry. UnionPay International is accelerating the promotion of UnionPay QR code payment in markets outside Mainland China to create more using channels of the Mobile QuickPass APP, and is building a model area in Southeast Asia.

UnionPay International partnered with AsiaMalls Management to launch UnionPay QR code payment at six large-scale malls under the latter. Meanwhile, UnionPay International and BOC Singapore will jointly launch BOCSG E-wallet APP within this year, with which customers will be able to enjoy QR code payment after adding UnionPay credit cards to the APP. More merchants in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia will accept UnionPay QR code payment soon.

“With the launch of the Mobile QuickPass APP, UnionPay is expanding our QR code payment globally by leveraging on resources in and outside China.” CEO of UnionPay International Cai Jianbo said, “Based on the continuous expansion of our NFC mobile QuickPass outside mainland China, we are enhancing our cooperation with major global institutions in QR code payment acceptance and e-wallet development, so as to expand the using channels of the Mobile QuickPass APP. Besides, we are seeking cooperation opportunities with retailers outside China to promote UnionPay QR code payment by integrating each other’s advantages, so as to offer the secure and convenient UnionPay mobile payment services to more global customers.”

UnionPay mobile QuickPass is accepted at over 600,000 POS terminals outside mainland China, across 16 markets like Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Australia, Canada, and Russia. It is expected that about one million POS terminals will be able to accept UnionPay mobile QuickPass by the end of the year. Merchants can easily accept the contactless payment with UnionPay chip cards and UnionPay mobile QuickPass after completing chip immigration and contactless modification.

Compared with other QR Code payments solutions available now, UnionPay QR Code payment is interoperable globally for it is compliant with the EMVCo QR Code Specifications, and is safer by adopting the Token technology. To date, UnionPay QR code payment is available at BreadTalk, Lady M and Itacho Sushi in Singapore, Colourmix in Hong Kong and over 100 restaurants in Macau.

At present, Southeast Asia is the key region for UnionPay QR code payments. Its acceptance network covers public transportation, hospitals, social insurance for children, educational institutions, etc. This is because there are many small and medium businesses in Southeast Asia, and UnionPay QR code payment offers them an easy solution to accept digital payments and facilitates the upgrading of the local payment industry. It is also due to UnionPay’s extensive offline acceptance in Southeast Asia and several countries in the region have either built their payment switch networks as per the UnionPay standards or adopted UnionPay chip card standard as the recommended standard of the industry.

Ushering in a new era of business localization.

UnionPay QR code payment has become an important impetus for UnionPay’s localization in Southeast Asia. The BOCSG E-wallet app is jointly developed by UnionPay and BOCSG. It will be compatible with UnionPay credit cards first, then with UnionPay debit cards. UnionPay International also partners with several other major institutions in Southeast Asia, and will launch more e-wallet products progressively. This means that, the rollout of UnionPay QR code payment outside mainland China is targeting at the local residents now after serving the Chinese tourists through merchant acceptance expansion.

With the launch of the Mobile QuickPass APP, the global rollout of UnionPay mobile payment is expected to accelerate. UnionPay International is developing the international version of the Mobile QuickPass APP, which not only provides more card using benefits and services for money transfer and cross-border payment, but also provides differentiated mobile payment solutions for banks, retailers and institutions outside China, so that these partner institutions are able to easily launch e-wallet products to offer the safe and convenient UnionPay QR code payment to the local customers.

Moreover, the UnionPay mobile payment standards are recognized and well-received by the global market. In Thailand, UnionPay International collaborates with other international card brands to launch the uniform QR code payment standard as the recommended standard by Bank of Thailand for the local financial institutions and merchants. In Singapore, UnionPay is a member of the QR code workgroup, and participates in the drawing up of the local QR code payment standard.